The Herd with Colin Cowherd - FantasyPros - 12 RISKY Fantasy Football Players You Should Think Twice About Before Drafting in 2025 (Ep. 1601)

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

Walk the line between championship contender and the biggest loser; Join Ryan Wormeli, Derek Brown and Pat Fitzmaurice for their 12 risky fantasy football players you should think twice about before drafting in 2025! Could we see another step back in volume for Detroit Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown? Is Indianapolis Colts RB Jonathan Taylor a ticking time bomb? Plus, why could drafting Philadelphia Eagles RB Saquon Barkley in the first round sink your season? The Pros circle potentially hazardous situations! Timestamps: (May be off due to ads) Intro - 0:00:00FantasyPros ECR Rankings - 0:00:14Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR - DET) - 0:00:43Saquon Barkley (RB - PHI) - 0:06:03Ladd McConkey (WR - LAC) - 0:13:11DraftKings Pick6 - 0:20:16Jonathan Taylor (RB - IND) - 0:21:32Trey McBride (TE - ARI) - 0:25:31Tyreek Hill (WR - MIA) - 0:35:43FantasyPros Draft Intel - 0:39:38David Montgomery (RB - DET) - 0:40:26Chuba Hubbard (RB - CAR) - 0:43:34Chris Godwin (WR - TB) - 0:48:09Marvin Harrison Jr. (WR - ARI) - 0:50:28Chris Olave (WR - NO) - 0:53:00Rashee Rice (WR - KC) - 0:56:47Outro - 1:01:27 Helpful Links: DraftKings Pick6 – Download the DraftKings Pick6 app NOW on Google Play or the App Store and use code FANTASYPROS. This offer is for new customers to play $5, get $50 in Pick6 credits. Only on DraftKings Pick6. The crown is yours.  Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut. Must be eighteen plus, age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick6 not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Void where prohibited. One per new customer. Bonus awarded as non-withdrawable Pick6 Credits that expire in thirty days. Limited time offer. See terms at https://pick6.draftkings.com/promos. Dynasty Rookie Draft Simulator - Our Dynasty Rookie Draft Simulator lets you complete a mock in minutes with no waiting between picks! Customize your league settings to match your league’s exact format. Premium subscribers can test trade scenarios by mocking with their traded draft picks. Prepare for rookie drafts AND dynasty startup drafts in one place! Use the Dynasty Rookie Draft Simulator to dominate your rookie draft today at fantasypros.com/simulator! Discord - Join our FantasyPros Discord Community! Chat with other fans and get access to exclusive AMAs that wind up on our podcast feed. Come get your questions answered and BE ON THE SHOW at fantasypros.com/chat Leave a Review – If you enjoy our show and find our insight to be valuable, we’d love to hear from you! Your reviews fuel our passion and help us tailor content specifically for YOU. Head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts and leave an honest review. Let’s make this show the ultimate destination for fantasy football enthusiasts like us. Thank you for watching and for showing your support – https://fantasypros.com/review/ BettingPros Podcast – For advice on the best picks and props across both the NFL and college football each and every week, check out the BettingPros Podcast at bettingpros.com/podcast, our BettingPros YouTube channel at youtube.com/bettingpros, or wherever you listen to podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey, Jonas, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Hello, everybody. Welcome into the Fantasy Pros football podcast. I'm Ryan warmly joined today by Derek Brown and by Pat Fitzmores. Fellas. We are talking some risky players to think twice about drafting in 2025. Quick reminder for everybody, as always, all of our 2025 consensus rankings and tiers can be found at Fantasypros.com slash rankings. That's where you can find ECR, our expert consensus rankings from around the league. You can also, of course, navigate to our staff rankings.

You can see where Fitz has these guy ranked. You can see where Debrough has these guys ranked and get a little more detail on that. If you so choose, as we get closer and closer to draft season, basically like a month and a half away at this point, which is both terrifying and exciting. Let's go ahead and dive right in, guys. We've got early round warnings. We're going to kind of go through some early round guys, then mid-round. Then maybe look at some other guys that we are interested in drafting.

And these could necessarily be guys. that we are still willing to draft, but there are risks, and we want to think about it. I think twice, I should say, about whether or not we're going to click draft on draft day. Fitz, let's start with you in the early round warnings. Who do you have here? That's risky. Oh, man. People are going to be mad at me for this one.

And I think this is someone people generally regard as one of the least risky players. But I think there's kind of a risk to taking Amun Rost, St. Brown. He has become this sacred cow. And for good reason, like in PPR fantasy scoring, Amman Rae, St. Brown has been wide receiver seven, wide receiver three, and wide receiver three the last three years. But here's the thing. Amunra's fantasy scoring was slightly down last year. He went from 20.7 PPR fantasy points per game in 2023 to 18.6 last year. Now, that's still high-level production, no doubt. But for Amin-Ras St. Brown to get within two fantasy points per game

of where he was in 2023, he needed to have a career high 12 touchdowns and catch an outrageous 81.6% of his targets. His catch rate had been 72.6 the previous two seasons, so it was a spike of 9 percentage points. And it's because his targets fell off. Like, Amin Ra averaged 10.3 targets per game in 2023, only 8.3 last year. I think the emergence of Jamison Williams was a big reason for that. And Jamo was here to stay. So it's hard to see Amman Ra getting back to 10 targets a game. It's also kind of hard to see him scoring another 12 touchdowns. The Detroit Lions scored a league high 70 touchdowns last season. No other team had more than 65.

And without Ben Johnson running the offense, are the Lions sniffing 70 touchdowns again? No way. So it's not that I think Amunrae St. Brown is going to be a bust, really. I think he's absolutely a first round pick. I just think he should go at the end of the first round rather than in the middle, which is where he usually goes. And not only am I taking Jamar Chase, C.D. Lamb, Justin Jefferson over Amin Ra. I'm also taking Brian Thomas, Pooka Naku, and Malik.

neighbors over Amin Ra. Debrough, you have long been a huge fan of Amin Ra. What do you think about when you hear Fitz kind of laying this case why he's actually a risk this year? I don't really disagree with it, man. I do think the touchdowns are a little bit more replicable in the sense that he was second in the NFL and red zone target. So maybe that goes down if they're making less trips to the red zone because they're

less efficient. The other thing about this is, and I know the departure of Aaron Glenn, but what if his defense is healthier in 2025? What if they're in less neutral game scripts? What they're actually leading? I mean, well, behind a little bit more. Like what the defense is actually better because dude, they got decimated last year. I mean, their entire defensive line got hurt. Cornerbacks were in and out. If their defense is better, maybe they're in positive game scripts, more running. So I do understand like where Fitz is coming from. And I mean, I'm kind of with Fitsy. Like, Fitsy, where do you have Ammoner ranked? Because I've got him at wide receiver eight and people could be

surprised by that? Like, I have Drake London and Nico Collins ahead of him. Yeah, I don't, I don't have those two ahead of him. But like, I can understand the case for both guys. So, but to your point, I also have Pooka and Brian Thomas Jr. ahead of him too. So I'm, I'm absolutely with you on this one. I'm with you guys too. Debrer, to what degree are you discounting lines players in general because of the loss of Ben Johnson? Like how much is that weighing on your decision making when laying out these rankings? Honestly, not a ton. And only because I subscribe to that, I think that people don't give Dan Campbell enough credit that he is involved in those offensive meetings. He is actually an offensive-minded head coach.

If you go back to it, just because he's more of the rah, rah, rah, rub some dirt on it type. Everybody's like, oh, he must be a defensive-minded guy. No, like, he played tight-end. He was an offensive-minded guy coming up through the ranks. So I'm not as worried about the Ben Johnson departure as everybody else is. I do think all these guys are pricey because that's kind of the price tag that comes with being one of the best offenses, if not arguably the best offense in the NFL. So those price tags are going to come with these guys. But I'm kind of at consensus or below on a lot of them only because I see an easier path.

And the reason I'm like out picking Draclin and Nico Collins, Brian Thomas Jr., those guys have an easier and more likely path to being wide receiver one overall in the range of outcomes than somebody like Amunrah, which even when everything went great for him over the last two years, you're talking about a guy that topped out. And I'm saying topped out because he was a freaking top five wide receiver. He was wide receiver four in each of the last two years and fantasy points per game. So like those are really freaking good seasons. It's awesome. But does he have a path, like a conceivable path to wide receiver one overall? Probably not if all these guys stay healthy.

Yeah, Nico is somebody I already had ahead of Amin Ra. And the more you're talking about it, I think I might have Drake London ahead of him too when all of a sudden done. But like to your point, Nico is a guy. You can paint the picture for if it goes well, he could be wide receiver one. It's really, it's harder to paint that picture with St. Brown. Let's go to a guy who just was RB1. And now we're saying is risky.

We've actually talked about Sequin Barclay a couple of times on recent shows. Debrough, it's interesting to see a name like this who just won people leagues last year. and yet some of the volume stuff, which is what I assume you're going to say, you can easily paint the picture for why maybe he should be, at least some warning flags up as well. Saquan Barkley, why is he risky for you?

To me, it's not one or two things. It's the sum of all of the parts. And I'm just going to lay this out, guys. And this comes down to pick your flavor of regression, because there's so many different parts of the Philadelphia Eagles offense to where we can point to and say, okay, well, this could regress.

This could regress. And I'll just lay out the case here, guys. One, they have the fewest passing attempts in the NFL. They are going to throw more this year. The question is not if, it's how much. Second of all, they had the second most positive game script plays last year. And I'm not telling you the defense is going to be bottom five and that's going to make them be so pass heavy. But we do see defenses year in and year out. They ebb and flow. So are the Eagles going to take a step back in that? And the reason I bring up the positive game script stuff is because in the second half of, NFL games last year. This team was leading the freaking NFL in second half rushing rate with 60.4%. The next closest team was Baltimore at 53%. That is a wide chasm. Okay, so we got those two different points, three different points. Also, yes, Worm, we can talk about the volume. Since 2010,

Sequan Barkley, and this is including regular season and playoffs, just finished with the second most touches in a season behind only DeMarco Murray. He had 482 combined touches. Murray in that season at 497. Okay. We know the history of high volume seasons at the running back and how that usually turns out. It's usually efficiency dip, underperformance, or injury.

I don't want to be forecasting injuries, but that's usually how it works out. I'll point back to CMC last year, and everybody hated that call when we made it too. And again, last thing I'm going to say here is you are in a better spot year over a year. If you expect a new RB1 to step forward, then asking the same thing to happen that happened in the previous season.

The likelihood of that happening is really, really slim at running back and wide receiver and fantasy. If you go back to 2013, Todd Gurley was the only running back to replicate RB1 and fantasy points per game seasons and back to back years in 2017 to 2018. So since 2013, he's the only running back. And if you go, that's only because that's all I could pull the data as far back. If you go back even farther, the trend still continues to repeat itself. I think it's only Priest Holmes that did it two years in a row.

So again, no RB in that sample size since 2019 has repeated as the RB1 in fantasy points per game. So I'm just saying with pick your spot of regression. One of these are multiple spots of here is going to hit. and Sequin's not going to be the RB one this year. So before I throw it at fits, because I obviously want to get his opinion as well, D-Bro, when you lay out all of that, at the end of the day, where does that leave Sequan ranked for you both? I'm curious in terms of amongst the running backs and in terms of like where in the first round,

are you considering drafting him? I've got him at RB4. I have Bejohn, Robinson, Jemir Gibbs, and actually Ashton Genti above him. And people, the biggest problem people have so far that I've heard, from the YouTube comments and stuff is Gentie. Okay, I just want Sequin Barclay at his rookie season and not Sequin Barclay getting older. I've rather, much rather that.

And for overall, I've got Sequan. I mean, he's my ninth overall player. I've got a ton of wide receivers. Like I've got Jefferson, Lamb, actually a Brian Thomas Jr. Am Pooka and Akua ahead of Jemir Gibbs, Ashton, Genti, and Seekwant at the tail end of the first round. So people fall in my ranks, they're not going to get Seekwan in many drafts, if any. amongst the running back stebro,

Christian McCaffrey is one that stands out who's behind him. Would you consider CMC ahead of Sequin if we're saying like, you know, things change every year if CMC is now the healthy one and Seacquan coming off this workload? Like is there a case we made for that? Or maybe like a Derek Henry who was almost as good as Seacquan last year and has been a guy who has been kind of built different like in Tennessee

and now his first year in Baltimore in terms of aging, not really getting to him. Is there a case for some of those guys to knock Sequon even lower down the list? Or are you comfortable with them at four? I'm comfortable with him at four. There is a case for CMC over him, and I think you're going to see maybe some ranking. Like, I've got Sequan at RB4,

and I've got CMC at RB5. So if you're telling me in training camp, we're getting all the buzz at CMC, it looks like he's CNC and stuff. I wouldn't have a problem putting him above Saquan. Fitz on a show we did with you, me, and Erickson earlier this week, we'd kind of talk draft or pass, and we talked about Seekwan.

He was somebody that you were drafting as high as RB2. Do you still feel that way? It's only been a few days, but from the last time we did his show, do you still feel that way? Yeah, I've got him at RB2 and fourth overall, and I'll sort of repeat my stance on Sequin. Like, I agree with a lot of what DeBrow is saying,

and the 482 touch thing, like, really is terrifying. Like, what if Sequin breaks down a year after getting this ridiculous workload that only DeMarco Murray has seen before? He maybe misses some games, but I'm still pretty confident that as long as Seyquon, is playing, he is going to produce big numbers. And I agree with Debrough, like, yeah, he could regress in some areas, although I do think the Eagles are still going to be one of the run heavier teams in the league, if not as

crazily run heavy as they were last season. So we could definitely get like a lesser season from Sequin, but man, after a season in which he had almost 2,300 yards from scrimmage and 15 touchdowns, we could fall back to like 17 hundred yards from scrimmage 10 or 11 touchdowns and still be pretty content with that with an early first round pick. So, you know, I still feel pretty comfortable with him. He's not my RB1. Bejan Robinson is. But I still feel okay about drafting Sequin early on. I feel like there's a lot of running backs in the top eight or so who are terrifying to both draft and pass. Like Sequod, it's a little, it's scary.

right, coming up the volume. But it's also kind of scary to pass and say this dude was winning leagues last year and is in basically the same situation. I say, Christian McCaffrey, it's scary to pass on a guy who now seems healthier and has been the number one overall running back, but has this injury history. It's scary to draft or pass on Devon A-chan, I think, like pending on two his health. Like, it's just, there's a lot of guys where you can really easily, I think, paint the picture of a very high-end season, but also kind of falling off and really hurting you if you took them

early amongst the running backs in this range. So Sequin, obviously, the guy coming off the best season of those, which is why he's ranked where he is. Fitz, let's go to your next early round risky player. Yeah, it's Ladd-McConkie. And I don't think a lot of people are going to see him as a risk either. Ladd was, you know, undeniably awesome as a rookie. And his rookie just kept getting better and better as it went on, culminating in a

197-yard game in the Chargers wildcard loss to the 10. Texans. Here's the thing, though, Ladd-McConkie had 112 targets last season. He ranked 26th in targets and only missed one game. So granted, there was a target uptick for him later in the season. If we break his season in half, he was at 6.5 targets per game over his first eight regular season game, 7.5 over his last eight. But still, if we say Ladd is going to average 7.5 targets and not miss a game this season. That works out to 128 targets, which would have ranked 19th last year. And he had terrific efficiency numbers, 2.59 yards per outrun, 10.3 yards per target.

He'll have strong efficiency numbers again because he's a really good player. But no wide receiver is maintaining 2.59 yards per route run and 10.3 yards per target over the long haul. Well, okay, maybe one guy because Justin Jefferson has averaged 2.60 yards per outrun and 10.2 yards per target over his career. But Jamar Chase, 2.23 yards per outrun, 9.3 yards per target. C.D. Lamb, 2.25 yards per run, 8.8 yards per target. Hard to keep up the crazy efficiency that Ladd gave us last year.

So if he can't increase the efficiency numbers, and even with those high efficiency numbers, he was wide receiver 17 and PPR points per game among receivers who played at least eight games. So Lad would need more target volume to give a solid wide receiver 1 stats. I don't know if he's going to get a target bump this year. Like the Chargers signed Najee Harris and drafted O'Marion Hampton. Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman want to run the crap out of the ball. And Chargers also drafted Trey Harris, D.Brow favorites. And now they might have another credible pass catching threat, maybe more,

if the Orande Gadsden Jr. minicamp pipe is to be believed. So I'm seeing Lad Mekonki go ahead of A.J. Brown and Drake London and some basketball drafts. And I just, I think that's a bridge too far. As much as I like Ladd, I'm kind of gently fading him in my drafts this year. Dbro, it feels like Ladd is one of those guys who is very settled into his consensus ranking. Like he's currently 11th in ECR.

And I think maybe you could make the case for, oh, I actually have him 12th or maybe as high as 10. But I don't see a ton of people making the case that he should be like, oh, he's way undervalued. be up there at six or he's way overvalued. He should be down at 18. It feels like his range of not outcomes, but of where he's being ranked as a preseason draft prospect is pretty solidified. That doesn't mean he can't be risky, but it means there seems to be a lot of general

consensus around him. You have him, I think it's 12th. I don't know if you've updated these rankings this last time I'm looking at them, but you also have them in that range. How do you view Ladd-McConkie in terms of a risky guy to draft or not? I see some of the risk. Like, my biggest thing is what version of the Chargers offense do we get this year because when we look at how the totality of last year, I mean, down the back halves,

a week seven through 18, they ranked eighth in neutral passing rate and sixth and pass rate over expectation. And I know there was a lot of injuries to the backfield. They sent fortified the backfield to the draft of re-agency. I guess I'm kind of wondering, where does the pass rate go for Ladd McConkey this year in this offense? That and can he, because as good as he was and Fitz nailed it, like the efficiency was otherworldly, which is a reflection of talent and we should believe in talent, all that kind of stuff, believe in second year wide receivers.

My questions on Ladd are twofold. One, I do have him at wide receiver 13, so I'm slightly below consensus on him, but within striking distance, depending on where he's falling in drafts, so people will get exposure to him. But my questions for Ladd's outcome this year are with the pass rate,

what does that happen? As long as the Chargers aren't a bottom five pass rate team, I think there's still a path for Lad. The other part about it is as good as he was, he still only had a 22.9% target share after week seven. So can Lad in his second year bump up from the 22, 23% range? Can he get into that 25 to 27% range? Hell, can he get to 30%?

You know, because, I mean, look, as much as I love Trey Harris, he's a rookie, even if he pops, like Ladd should still be the clear leader of this passing attack. and outside of him, who's a high-end target earner, a proven high-end target earner? So can he bump up the target rate and become even more of a target hog? And what does the pass rate look like? So I see the path for Lad outproducing this ADP, like in this ranking, but not by a ton, man. Like I think in the best cases, scenarios, like even during that stretch, he was still, what,

wide receiver 11 in fantasy points per game? So, like, we're all drafting him and saying, okay, repeat what you do? is he a guy that you're going to draft and you say he does have top five upside? That's where it's like you really got to squint to see it. And I don't know if I see top five upside. To Fitz's point, he kind of feels like more of a guy we're asking to replicate what happened last year. I think there's a path to do it.

But it's some things kind of go right. And some of these things we just don't know what the Chargers won't do. Fitz, if you had to guess, like if I told you to put a number ranking to it, where do you think the Chargers offense finishes this year in terms of passing, right? 30th. 30th. Okay. So you do see them as definitely bottom five.

Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, how much more could they telegraph what they want to do on offense by signing Najee Harris and drafting Omerian Hampton in the first round? They are going to run the ball like crazy. And it's Greg Roman worm. You're a Ravens fan. You should know what Greg Roman wants to do. Yeah. The one thing I would say about Greg Roman is that Herbert's the best passer he's ever coached.

So I'm not, I'm not closed off to the possibility that he does, he does want to pass more now that he has a great passer. Like his other stops had been largely with great running quarterback. So at least at that point in his career where Lamar was when he was with Lamar. And I wonder if the running back edition is more just they don't want to be terrible there. Like what kind of late season, J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards was washed. And I wonder if it's more like we refuse to be bad at this position as opposed to, we're now going to run it, you know, the third most times in football. But that's definitely on the table.

Like I don't say that with a degree of confidence. Greg Roman is a descendant of the prehistoric play callers of the NFL. He draws his plays up on a cave wall. I think you're probably right. But again, Herbert's just so good that I'm hoping it's the other way around. Nothing beats relaxing on a hot summer day and watching baseball. And the simplest way to get in on the action is to download the pick six app from draft Kings. It's crazy simple. Just pick more or less on the stats for two or more of your favorite

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bonus awarded as non-withdrawable pick-six credits that expire in 14 days limited time offer see terms at pick6 dot draftkings.com slash promos hey it's us the Jonas brothers and guess what we have some big news what's the news news news news we created our own podcast called hey Jonas we invented a podcast well we didn't invent it we just contributed to a first people to do podcasts pretty yeah pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there but this one's extra special so how do we how do we actually come up with a Hey Jonas, guys. I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. We were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers.

This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending. Opinions are flying. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened.

That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source. The athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast. podcast network on TikTok. All right, D-Bro, who's your next risky player? Oh, I know Fitsy's probably not going to like this one.

It's Jonathan Taylor, man. The low-hanging fruit here is worry about the offensive ecosystem he's living in with the quarterback situation. How often are they going to get in the red zone? So, I mean, that's the easy thing to sit here and pick apart here. But for me, it also comes down to Jonathan Taylor just at the player and the efficiency. Last year, we saw he dropped off a map. going from a guy that I've had in that Nick Chubb type of file him as far as rushing efficiency,

tackle breaking. The explosive run rate was still there for Jonathan Taylor last year, but the tackle breaking was not. And yes, we can point to is that some of, okay, he was hurt last year and playing through an injury and stuff. But that's kind of been Jonathan Taylor's game over the last few years. But amongst 46 qualifying running backs last year, Jonathan Taylor, 42nd and missed tackles force per attempt, 44th in yards of the contact per attempt. Only Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb were worse than Jonathan Taylor in that metric last year. And going back to the health, I mean, dude has dealt with ankle injuries basically his entire

career. He's had, so last year of the high ankle sprain, he's had ankle injuries in each of the last three seasons. And the other part of this is, is the passing game. If the efficiency dips, the volume, the efficiency of this offense dips, does JT have the runout to get past game usage or the efficiency that could save him. If those things go wrong, he hasn't. And I don't think it's going to change with regardless of whoever on that depth chart is going to be playing quarterback this year. I don't think that's going to be there.

And Jonathan Taylor last year was 37th in target share and 43rd in yards per route run and first downs per route run. So JT just feels like the sexier version of Kyron Williams to me. And it's just not a player archetype that I'm really interested in. I think fits might be closer to Debrose Stan. on this than D. Bro thanks even despite interesting homerism. Just based on where he's ranked,

because Fitz does have him a couple spots below ECR. Yeah, I've got him at RB 10. Oh, all right. In half point PPR. Yeah, I mean, I'm RB8 in ECR. I've got him at RB 13. So, I mean, we're basically riding together then Fitzee. I'm surprised by this.

I'm trying not to be a Wisconsin homer this year. I think I'm below consensus on both Jonathan Taylor and Jake Ferguson. So, yeah, I mean, I have kind of the same concerns. I do think a healthy Jonathan Taylor is still one of the best peer runners in the NFL. So like the numbers that Debrough cites, I think would be better if he were fully healthy, but the health is obviously a concern. I think as Debrough mentioned, the ankle thing.

I remember arguing with Evan Silva about this last year before the season. And Evan turned out to be right. He's like, I think the ankle issues are chronic. And sure enough, like, take. Taylor winds up getting another ankle issue. So he's missed eight games due to ankle problems over the last three years. Ongoing concern, he's also had fewer than 20 receptions each of the last two years. And it's hard to see the reception total spiking when the quarterbacks are Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones.

So, yeah, I'm a little tepid on JT as well. Where's the round fits that you're willing to draft Taylor? Like, where in those early rounds would you say, okay, I'm taking the swing? Yeah, like later second would be fine. Is it more early third for you, D. Brough? He's a back end of the third pick for me. So probably not going to get him. I don't know where is he at an overall ranks at Worm.

In Overe? 19th. Yeah. So people, I'm like a round and a half behind ECR. Yeah. 22. His ADP for the record is aligned with ECR amongst the running backs at RB8. So doesn't seem like a guy that you guys will be getting much of.

I don't think I will be getting a lot of Jonathan Taylor either. Let's go to your next player here. Fitz. We're moving to a tight end now. Yeah. Hockey season is over, but Debrough and I are going to drop the gloves on this one. And spoiler alert, I'm going to pull his sweater over his head and start pummeling away at him. It's Trey McBride who has a late second round ADP.

I think he's a third round value. And I've got him ranked behind Brock Bowers and George Kittle. But Tray McBride is Debride. is Debrose tight end one, more on that in a minute. So McBride is coming off a wonderful season, 1111-146 yards, 2.12 yards per route run, which is a really good number. He's a stud, no question. I'm just not taking him ahead of JSN, Garrett Wilson, Chase Brown, Kyron Williams,

or George Kittal, for that matter, all of whom have lower ADPs than Trey McBride. I have two issues with McBride relative to his cost. First off, I know people are waiting for him to have better luck with touchdowns. And I wouldn't be surprised if he put up a good touchdown total this season. It's certainly reasonable to think he'll beat his previous season best touchdown total, which is three. But like the poor TD totals are a chronic thing for this guy. McBride has six touchdowns in 49 NFL games over three seasons. In his final college season at Colorado State, 90 receptions.

one touchdown, which, by the way, he didn't get until his last game of his college career, didn't have more than four touchdowns in any other college season. So in his last seven years of organized football, his high in touchdowns is four. Like maybe Trey McBride is just a guy who isn't going to give us many touchdowns. The other thing, you have to think that Cardinals' offensive coordinator, Drew Petzing, spent the offseason, trying to figure out ways to better utilize Marvin Harrison Jr. like the number four overall pick in the draft, MHJ had an average depth of target of 13.4 yards.

Like he was totally miscast as this vertical receiver. Something has to change. And now, D, bro, to your credit, you are consistent with the story you tell with your rankings. You have McBride as the tight end one and you're skeptical about Marvin Harrison Jr. You've got them ranked as a wide receiver three. Now, I tend to think we get different usage and better numbers for, Marvin Harrison Jr. in year two, which likely means at least a slight haircut in targets and receptions for Trey McBride. I do think McBride is really good. And I can understand why most

people have him ranked ahead of George Kittle, even though I prefer Kittal. But Dibro, McBride over Brock Bowers is bat guano crazy, man. And let me tell you why. It's not. It's really not. But we'll get to it. McBride was a very good tight end prospect coming out of college. Brock Bowers may have been the best tight end prospect ever. McBride put in two seats. season's building towards his 1111-yard breakout in year three. Brock Bowers had 112 catches and 1100 yards as a rookie. Bowers is just on another level, man. Like he and Trey McBride are not comparable.

All right. Well, gloves are off. All right, Fancy, let's go. All right. So I do have Trey McBride. And we're going to talk about Marvin Erickson, Jr. Don't worry, people. We're going to talk about him later in this episode.

So McBride has, and I want to be very clear when I say this, McBride has league defining league winner upside this year. If you look at how bad his touchdown luck was last year, it wasn't because of usage. It's straight up like sometimes players run bad in touchdowns. We talk about this all the time. Touchdowns are the flukiest thing every year. I'm old enough, Fitsy, where I lived in a world once

where we talked about George Kittle can't score touchdowns. That's not a problem these days. We've talked about that with other players. We talked about that. We're all living in this world where we talked about that at one point with Amin Ross Sam Brown. That hasn't been an issue the last two years because to begin his season, he was born in the Keenan Allen mold and wasn't scoring touchdowns. So McBride, I think we're talking about a player that it has been the ultimate run bad with touchdowns. He was second in red zone targets amongst tight ends last year.

So the touchdowns are coming. But also, we're discussing a player that literally led as good as. Bowers was last year, Trey McBride amongst 47 qualifying tight ends, first in target share, second and receiving yards per game, 30 yards per route run, first and first downs. He was top three in every single freaking metric

I can find. And the only thing that went bad for him last year was touchdowns. Nothing has changed in Arizona as far as the constitution of this offense. Arizona's running it back. Same dudes. So for me, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the rational coach. of Drew Petsing is not going to do dumb stuff with the same exact players that he had last year.

And even if he does change up Marvin Harrison Jr's route tree, which I think he should, these two guys, I mean, they're the twin pillars of this passing attack. They're both going to soak up north of 25, 27 percent target shares if everything goes right and Tram McBride. And the reason I say he has league defining upside. Last year, if the touchdowns were where they should have been based off of his voluminable, and usage and everything. This guy was the, so he scored 15.6 fantasy points per game last year.

His expected fantasy points per game, and I know that it wasn't real, but based off of the volume, the expected fantasy points per game he should have scored was 19.2 points. Boys, that is Travis Kelsey first round league defining type of production to where if you compare him across other positions. that spot would have made Tram McBride the wide receiver three in fantasy points per game last year and the RB five in fantasy points per game last year. That is a first round league defining league winning player. The touchdowns happen this year.

McBride will win people leagues and tilt the math in his favor. Debrough, if you had to guess right now, like just project how many touchdowns he's going to have this year. What number would you put it at? What, like, what range are we thinking that you think will be not expected, but the actual touchdown total this year? Seven to eight. Okay. I think he's going to have a big swing. I do.

To me, and I know this is a little bit different for you, Fits, because you actually do have Kittle ranked ahead. But for somebody like you, D. Bro, to me, the biggest case for somebody like Kittle is that if you have them close, and I think you do, because you are also high on George Kittle this year. I am very high on Kittle. He's going, based on ECR, as an early fourth rounder. Whereas Trey McBride is a late second rounder, that's like a round and a half of value for a guy that you think is also very, very good. To me, that's the case for, you know, not taking somebody like McBride is if you think you can get Kittle a little bit later. I do think McBride should be ranked higher, though. Like, it's funny because Dibro has Cherry McBride tied in one, fits as a tight end three.

I've got them tied in two, which I think is, it's not I think. It is in line with consensus, you know, behind only Brock Bowers. but I tend to lean closer to the Debrose side of this argument just in terms of the upside and how excited I would be to have Trey McBride on my team. I guess let me ask you this, Fitz, how much of your worry with Trey McBride and your argument against him, and again, it's not you have them buried in your rankings, he's tight in three for you. But how much of you, relatively speaking, fading McBride is strictly that touchdown, you know,

production as opposed to all the other factors that you laid out? that is maybe more than half the reason but I also like DeBarrows underplaying the the Marvin Harrison Jr. thing I think like this is a mandate for Drew Petsing. Like if he can't do it fine, but then he's going to get fired after this year. They spent the number four pick in the draft. It can happen. It could absolutely happen if he sucks again. Like Petsing is gone because like it is the mandate of Drew Petsing and you got to think

he has spent some late nights during this office. season trying to figure out how to best utilize MHJ. So like, and maybe, maybe it doesn't happen and they lean heavily on Trey McBride again and Kyler just feels much more comfortable throwing these short little passes to Trey. I get it, but, you know, and like we'll see on the touchdown thing. I could be wrong. I do probably expect a new career high, although I think it might be closer to like six than seven or eight.

You know, it's been a multi-year run of, we'll find out if it's. It's just like this multi-year run of bad touchdown luck, or if this is just like his thing where he is never going to be a prolific touchdown score. That could go either way. The last thing I'll mention here before we transition worm is one other thing about the Arizona Cardinals offense that is not talked about enough is they leaned extremely pass heavy towards the back half of last year. So the volume for all these players could go up. Weeks 12 through 18 last year, Arizona was fourth in New Jersey. neutral script passing rate. The only teams that were higher were the Bengals, the Chiefs, and the

Texans. I think so the reason, and we'll move off it after this point, the reason fits that I asked about how much the touchdown thing is weighing on your, your fading of him here is because I think the better case for being lower on Tram McBride is the anticipation of Marvin Harrison Harry Jr. taking step forward because last year, Tram McBride had two receiving touchdowns, one rushing touchdown. And he was still, he was tied in two and PPR, tied in three and half PPR. So even if the tight ends, even if the touchdowns don't come, he's still giving you, based on the usage last year, a top three tight end floor. It's the idea that the usage might not be the same. I think that is the more, if you're going to make the case of him as risky,

the one where you can see him actually falling off and being a bad pick. Yeah. And like no question there is a gigantic Grand Canyon type drop off from number three. However, you want to order the top three to whoever's in number four. Yeah, agreed. All right, D. Bro, let's go to your next early round risky player. Oh, good Lord. I don't know how anybody wants to draft Tyreek Hill, but he's back in ECR,

is a top 15 wide receiver. People are just saying, yep, top five ceiling. Two is going to stay healthy. Tyreek's not going to face father time. All these things are going to happen. I'm just not there, man. Aging wide receivers. Father time is undefeated.

Tyreek is being ranked with a lot of hopium. and not near where his production was last year. I mean, weeks 8 through 16 with two a back, wide receiver 24 and fantasy points per game, which is actually very generous, considering he was outside the top 30 wide receivers and target share and yards per route run. You look at 112 qualifying wide receivers last year. The per route metrics fell off, guys. 28th in separation, 48th in route win rate.

That's not a player that I want to be drafted. inside of the top 20 at wide receivers with all of that risk, an aging, declining player. And we haven't even discussed, like, the Tyreek, just being Tyreek kind of stuff. Like, can we not, like, talk about, like, it's a non-zero chance that he pulls off his jersey,

pulls an A-B, and says, screw you guys, I'm out at halftime by week eight, or Mike McDaniels is fired, and this entire team just goes into the freaking can. So, no, I don't want to draft Tyrick Hill. No, I don't think he has 2,000. and yard receiving upside. No, I don't think he has top five wide receiver upside and fantasy. I feel like this is one of the landmines of fantasy draft season. I'm not drafting Tyree Kill this year.

I don't really have a lot to add to this one because I like totally agree. He's just not somebody at cost that I really have any interest in. There's just too many. I think he's a prime example of a very risky player and there's just too many risks for me to be interested. Fitz, you're not like well ahead of where Debrer hasn't ranked, but you are a couple spots higher than Debrer on Hill in terms the wide receiver rankings. Yeah, wide receiver 19. So below consensus above where Debrough has him. And you have to at least consider the possibility that they restore some of the verticality to the Miami passing game. If they're confident they can, you know, adequately protect Tua, which is not a given because I do not like the Miami offensive line this year.

So, yeah, I don't think we're seeing another 1,700 yard. season out of Tyreek, maybe like 1,200 is doable if things get good again and maybe he gets back to double-digit touchdowns. But I do like Debrough have concerns about how well he ages with his game. Like I think Mike Evans' game is probably going to age better than Tyreek Hill's game. Yes. Because Evans does not do it with athleticism and speed. He does it by being a superior rebounder. And like the contested catch ability is not going to disappear that quickly with age. So yeah, I'm, I'm kind of drafting around Tyreek myself. Mike Evans and Devante Adams should not be ranked behind Tyreek Hill. And yet in ECR, this is what we're seeing. I was going to say when I, when I look at like these names and if I want to throw like either or at

you guys on the show, like Tyree Kill or so and so, if I look at our staff rankings, he's around names where I'm a lot more willing to make that, you know, oh, would you rather take Tyrie Killer Marvin Harrison Jr. or Tyra Kill or Ted McMillan, Tyree Killer, D.K.K. McHugh. I think those are reasonable questions asked. But if you look at ECR, the names that he's around where you say, oh, would you rather have Tyree Kill or it's Tyree Killer Garrett Wilson, Tyree Killer Mike Evans, Tyree Kagan, Tyree Kee Higgins, Tyree Kee Hattens. And to me, it's very easy not Tyree Kill in any of those scenarios. Like, I just don't think he's in the range of the rankings that he should be. It should be like five to eight spots lower.

And those are the names he should be near. Adamantly agree. Adamantly agree. Draft Intel shows you how your league mates actually draft based on up to five years of real data. Find out who always takes wide receivers early, fades tight ends or targets QBs late. Use those tendencies in the draft simulator to test real strategies against your actual league. Try it now at fantasy pros.com slash intel and draft smarter than ever. I know that that's kind of like a quick promo that I just did there.

So it sounds like I'm doing a read. I actually like there is almost maybe no tool that we have at Fantasy Pros that I would more encourage people to use than draft Intel. It is super cool. It is super valuable when preparing for your draft. It is like, you know, fantasy places like to throw out the term cheat code and we do it too. That is a cheat code. Draft Intel is awesome.

I really would like highly, highly recommend it to people to check that out. So again, fantasypros.com slash intel. All right. Let's go to some of the midround names here. if it's who you have. And obviously there's inherently less risk the later into the draft you get. So we'll maybe go a little bit quicker on these names. We just got four of them here for you. But mid round names, risky, who you got first. Yeah, Lions fans already hate me. So I might as well just lean into that. David Montgomery. Over the last two years, Montgomery has scored 25

touchdowns in 28 regular season games. And as I mentioned in my little soliloquy about Amon-Ros St. Brown earlier in the show, I'm not expecting another league high 70 touchdowns out of the Lions with Ben Johnson no longer around. The Lions also had excellent veteran center Frank Ragnow retire. You have to wonder if that's going to affect Detroit's inside running game. And man, you really have to wonder how much longer it's going to be a near 50-50 workload split between Jumeir Gibbs and David Montgomery when Gibbs is one of the three best running backs in the NFL.

So I just see a number of possible ways that Montgomery does not live up to his ADP. Yeah, I've liked Montgomery for a long time, but it feels like it was at a certain point, the other shoes getting drop here, and it's going to be more fully gives backfield. There's going to be fewer touchdown scoring opportunities. Dibra, what do you think about Montgomery? Where do you have him ranked? I've got him at RB 22, some right behind consensus. I could make an easy case once we get into training camp and roles are kind of getting solidified a little bit more. Guys are staying healthy, things like that, where I can bump him down a little bit more.

And I do think that his profile was incredibly touchdown dependent. I mean, like weeks one through 14 when he was healthy. He was 21st and rushing arts per game. But this dude was second in the NFL and rushing touchdowns behind. Only freaking Derek Henry through the first 14 games. He's the anti-Trey McBride, Dibro. I know. That's good call, Fancy.

Yeah. I mean, so it's a lot of touchdown driven. So it really comes down to like, what do you think about Jamir Gibbs in his role? And what do you think about the constitution of the Lions offense this year? And if both of those things, if you lean more towards Gibbs or you think the lions are going to regress some more, then Montgomery needs to be low. But I mean, dude, like over that spot because of the touchdowns, he was RB 11 in fantasy points per game. So honestly, compared to the production, we're all kind of giving him the discount to a certain extent. But I do think we can do it a little bit more if, like guys like Trayvion Henderson and some of these other guys, like if we do get word that, you know, like Aaron Jones is staying healthy.

and all these are the parts of pieces. If those things happen, I could see other players hopping him in ranks before we get to week one. Do you think Fitz that there's maybe a case to be made for Montgomery as a good investment because he can be somebody that is like a low end flex for you when everybody's healthy? But if Gibbs gets hurt,

he becomes a much more valuable starter. Yeah, I mean, there is that contingent upside for sure. Like if Gibbs were to miss three or four games, Montgomery could. I mean, he's getting ranked as a top 12 running back in any week. gives us out, right? Or at least a lot of out. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that that is the one path for Montgomery to outkick his ADP significantly. Yeah. Debrough, who's your risky player here? All right. Well, we've we've ticked off a few fan bases. I'm going to take off the DGens and the Carolina Panthers fan base here with Chuba Hubbard. I'm just not sold on Chuba Hubbard. I feel like

last year, if you really put his full season under the microscope, there's a lot of worries here. So Miles Sanders, I'm not telling you that he's good, but he factored into this backfield. He left week 10 with an injury, missed weeks 10 through 17. And if you look at Hubbard's usage at the very, like the outset of the year and how it progressed before Miles Sanders, there's a lot of worries here, guys, where weeks one through nine with Hubbard and Miles Sanders, Hubbard played 54 to 83% of the snaps. He had four games in that sample with 65% or lower the snaps. if you dial it in further. So basically before Carolina figured out that Miles Sanders was total dust,

in weeks one through three, Hubbard and looking at his past game role, which we've talked about past game, and that's where it gives the floor and the ceiling for these players, in weeks one through three before the Carolina kind of figured up Miles Sanders is not very good of football anymore, Chuba Hubbard only had a 35.5% route per dropback rate. Sanders is eating into it, too, at 27%.

Their red zone role was basically, split. Hubbard had three red zone rushing attempts. Sanders had two. Now, if you look at after Sanders was out, Hubbard's route per dropback rate skyrocketed to 64%. He had a 12.4% target chair, and a lot of that was just based out of necessity. They didn't have illustrious pass catchers. And so adding Tedderoa McNeillan, some of these guys being another year in the Carolina Panthers passing offense and the system, Hubbard failed to eclipse 1.0, yards per route run or 15 receiving yards per game, regardless of whatever split you look at for the season. So I think he could have issues in the red zone. Because they also signed Rico

Dowell in the offseason and they drafted Trevor Eton, who is a very good passing down back. So looking at Hubbard's runout this year, I think everybody's kind of expecting, oh, he's going to go back to being like basically Carolina's Kyvern Williams, where he's getting all the work. And I don't know if that happens, guys. Like, I think Rico, who played really well last year, can eat into the Reds zone role and the early down role. Trevor E.TN, if he proves that he is competent on passing downs, can eat into the passing game role. And I mean, we already saw this happen with Miles Sanders last year to begin the year before Hubbard went on that just monstrous like 80, 90, 95% of the snaps type of run. So I think last year's role and production was based out of necessity,

not a reflection of like Hubbard's overall talent and skill set as a true three down bell cow. So Hubbard, where he's being drafted, I just can't buy into it, man. I've got him as a low RB2. And my ranks right now, I've got him as a RB24. And that could be generous if this becomes maybe a two or three way committee. Fitz, this is one where based on the rankings, it looks like you are higher on Chubo than D. Debrose. Yeah, RB17.

And I've kind of debated like moving James Connor. ahead of him, so it might be RB18 by tomorrow. But so I don't dispute Debrose's assessment of Chuba's passing down role. I wouldn't be surprised if Chuba finished with fewer than the 43 catches he had last year. I do think, like, Chuba would have to be pretty bad and play himself out of the lead gig to not be the lead guy. Like, the Panthers told us how they feel about their situation with the contracts they handed out. They gave Chuba four years, $33,0.16.5. Guaranteed RICO Dowdell got a one year, $2.75 million deal.

So, like, Chuba is the guy. RICO is not unseating him in the preseason. And Chuba was actually pretty good as a runner last year, eighth in yards after contact per attempt among all running backs with at least 100 carries. So I still think Chuba is pretty good. And I like the trajectory of the offense under Dave Canales in Carolina, and I think Carolina has one of the better young offensive lines in the league.

I've also heard of a lot about the Chuba Hubbard contract. I just want to point it out there for people that the Carolina Panthers can get out of his contract after this season with only a 4.5 million dead cap hit. Yeah. But like it's it's, it's kind of funny money a little bit too. 16 and a half million guarantee is not nothing, though. That is money. No, no, I don't disagree with Chuba Hubbard is getting to matter what. Fitz, let's go to your next risky player. It's Chris Godwin. And Godwin is actually pretty affordable right now.

His consensus ADP is 58th overall, so he's a late fifth rounder. People are going to think that's pretty good value for a guy who was wide receiver one in PPR scoring through the first six weeks of 2024. But then he got hurt. And really that is my concern, the health issue. Godwin dislocated his ankle and fractured his fibula. It was a pretty gruesome injury in that game against the Ravens Worm. And I just have a hard time believing that Godwin is going to be anywhere close to 100% to start this season.

And frequent guest of the show, Dr. Deepak Jonah, says he thinks Godwin is going to be more like 80% to start the season and 90% by midseason. Then factor in added target competition. I mean, Godwin was already sharing targets with the great Mike Evans. and now here comes first round pick, a mecca egg buca. So I'm just not that interested in rostering Chris Godwin this season, even though I really like the player and, you know, got off to a flying start last year.

I just don't think this year is going to be anything like last year. Debrough, where are you at on Godwin? I'm actually lower than consent. I got him at wide receiver 34. Consensus has him as a wide receiver 28. So I'm with Fitsy on this one. The other part about Godwin, And if we just pop up in the hood of last year,

I mean, he didn't start out great out the gate. When they had him playing more outside, it was after towards the middle of the season, whenever he went back into the slot, and they got force-fed all the design targets and stuff like that where we saw him just crushing. And so what do we see? Is he going to, with the arrival of a Mecca Abuka,

is Emeka Abuka and Godwin going to rotate inside outside? Is a Mecca going to play in the inside? Is Godwin going to be healthy? Like, I think at this point of his career, These are a lot of different questions. And when we're in this range of the draft and stuff like that, I just find myself continually picking other players in the draft. Like, you know, ECR, like, are we going to go with Chris Godwin to have one last ride?

Or you want to pick Jalen Waddle. You want to go with Tedro and McMillan. Like, those are other guys that are at their cost and where they're at versus Godwin. I would much rather draft either one of them. Debrough, let's go to the last risky guy here. And this is something that we've kind of alluded to a lot already. in the show talking about other players, so I think we can go quicker on here. I mean, dude, everybody is forecasting that Marvin Harrison Jr. takes not only just a,

I mean, like a ginormous step. He was wide receiver 39 and fantasy points per game last year. He is being ranked in ECR as wide receiver 20. So everybody is baking in an overly so, the second year leap for wide receivers that we're just expecting to happen. But yet, Drew Petzing is still there. Yet they didn't add any other wide receivers of different archetypes that can do the role that basically they shoved Marvin Harrison Jr. into last year because if you go weeks one through nine, this dude had 49% of his routes were vertical breaking routes. Unfortunately, for Marvin Harrison Jr., he ranked 84th in separation and 51st in route win rate on vertical

breaking routes. Is this going to change this year? Everybody in ECR and everybody's telling us that that it is. I'm not so sure with that. I'm not telling you that I believe in rational coaching and I believe that Drew Petsing is magically going to roll out of bed in the year 2025 and do smarter things with Marvin Harrison Jr. In a role that he was ill-equipped to perform in. And we all can talk about, oh, he looks really, really good. He's all bulked up and stuff like that. Hey, what if that kind of works against him?

And he's the next David Boston. And it's not a wonderful thing that he added all the size and strength. Fitz, do you have anything more you want to add on Harrison or we already talked about him earlier. Oh, man, evoking the David Boston thing is pretty terrifying. So his consensus ADP is wide receiver 16. I'm wide receiver 18. Like I said, I think Drew Petzing is going to try to fix the problems with Marvin Harrison Jr. And I do believe in the talent. I just don't know if he and Kyler Marie are a good mix with Kyler clearly like not loving throwing over the middle of the field. Like Kyler likes to throw to the edges. And you can't see the middle of the field, Pitsy.

You can't see over the offensive line. Exactly. I'm not like out on Harrison. I think I'm more interested in him than certainly Debrough, maybe a little more interested than fits, but ADP of wide receiver 16 seems really high coming off of this. It's rich, dude. Like that is like a lot of banking in a huge step forward.

Like I've got him ranked as a wide receiver three. That's better than what he produced last year. But everybody else is saying, no, no, we got to go. I would have more in wide receiver two, but like back in wide receiver two, not like 16th is really high. All right. So we've got kind of one little mini segment here to wrap things up. It's kind of just one more risky player that you guys might actually draft at this

spot. So kind of a player that does carry some risk, but that you guys are maybe extra interested in, given their current cost. It's who do you have here? All right. I was eagerly drafting Chris Olavé when he was going in the late second or early third round. You better believe I'm going to be drafting him in at least one or two leagues now that

he's like wide receiver 36 or something and going in the sixth round. 2,000 yards seasons to begin his career before last year's injury shortened campaign. Alave is a terrific route runner. Alave is big time speed. Alave is average 2.21 yards per route run for his career, which is excellent. But people are going to be scared away by the dual specters of his concussion issues and his quarterback issues with either Spencer Rattler or Tyler Shuck trying to get him the ball. I am willing to take the medical risk with the lave because of the potential rewards.

And I do understand the QB concerns. But look, even the very worst passing offenses in the league every year get at least 3,000 passing yards. Well, the Patriots were six yards short of that last year. But you get the idea. They said home up here. There is a certain baseline of production for even the worst NFL passing attacks. No doubt the Saints are going to have one of the worst passing attacks in the league.

It's going to be a small pie, but the Saints don't have many other credible pass catchers. So Chris Oliva is going to carve himself off a pretty big chunk of that small pie. Debrough, you are the biggest and or only Saints fan that I know. What do you think about Alave this year? Well, you must have missed the memo that I've historically a Saints fan, I guess. I was going to say that I have disavowed my fandom. I'm no longer a Saints fan until Mickey Loomis is gone. and this team actually has a real direction forward.

And when at that day, I would return to Saints' fandom hoodat, baby. But until then, no. I'm basically with consensus here. I've got Chris Alabe as wide receiver 30 in my ranks. I think he's going to be a volume-driven wide receiver three. I hope that he can outproduce that. For me, I'm not worried about the concussions and stuff like that.

Like I understand, though, the worry with that. For me, it just comes down to the constitution of this offense. And what does he get out of quarterback play? what does that do to affect his touchdown expectations? So could he outperform this based off a talent based off of if Tower Shuck cannot just be horrible, if Spencer Rattler cannot be just replacement level quarterback, then yeah, he can outproduce this. I don't think it's a talent thing. I think it's just for me it's the quarterback.

You have them ranked higher than I do. I think I'm a wide receiver 32. If you're at 30. Yeah. I mean, we're both behind consensus. What is consensus in ECR? At least when I'm looking at, worm was,

oh, it's 29. We're behind. ADP is 36. So ECR is more, more in line. Yeah, it's one of the cases

where ADP is. Yeah, actually, yeah, 29, yeah. His ECR is higher in PPR. He's wider receiver 26,

actually in ECR. Yeah, so, I mean, to be honest, like, we could see him, I mean,

to Fitz his point, then we're above ADP. We could see him go, the closer we get to training camps week one and stuff like that. I won't be surprised of ECF's, C.

Starts to mirror what ADP is already doing to Chris Alabe. Yeah. People are going to be terrified by the quarterback thing. They're going to be. Oh, yeah. I mean, well, and then,

I mean, come on, guys. Like, Travis Hunter's going to hop him in 80 and ECR. Tedaro McMillan's going to hop him in ECR, probably Calvin Ridley, George Pickens,

Jordan Addison. So I think Alabe is probably going to settle into that wide receiver 35 to wide receiver 39 kind of bucket. So I agree. All right, Dever, who's our last risky player? This is somebody that,

my draft despite the risks. Yeah, man. I mean, whether it's return from injury, suspension, how the targets are divvied up and the role that he plays in this offense. I was out to begin the offseason and I'm back in, baby. It's Rishi Rice. And I'm curious how much me and Fitsy fight about this one. I think Rishie Rice has an insane upside.

Just looking at how he started last year and even if he wanted to tack on how he finished the year previous, I mean, dude, weeks one through three. he was on just a ridiculous pace. Like 31.5% target share, 3.6 yards per route run. A 41.2% first read share. He was at 0.188 first downs per route run. And I know that's a lot of numbers for people, but just the 100 foot view of that,

that would have put him on the overall season for all qualifying wide receivers if he kept up that type of insane pace. Those were top three numbers. He would have been ranked second, first, third and first in those four categories had he kept that up. The 21.6 points per game that he scored in that stretch would have finished second behind only freaking Jamar Chase last year.

So I'm not telling you that he keeps up that type of pace, but based off of where Rashid Rice is going, I don't think Xavier Worthy takes the Rashy Rice role in this offense because worthy proved he can play the Rice role. I don't think Rice can play the field stretching role that they're going to I asked worthy to go right back into this year. So whether it's, you know, all the injury, the suspension is still looming. We don't know. I'm willing to deal with all the risk that comes to Rishi Rice right now and draft him pretty

aggressively. Fitz, what do you think? Yeah, I'm pretty conflicted on Rice. And the fact that I am not, you know, all gas, no breaks, like a lot of other people are on Rishi Rice has me pretty well behind consensus, just because. And my hesitation is related to Xavier Worthy. Because, yeah, when Rishi Rice was just doing tremendous things in 2023 and early 2024, he was the only game in town at wide receiver.

The early 2024 usage of Xavier Worthy was very much just in a gadget role. Like, he was a gadget guy for them, those first few games until Rice got hurt. Then by the end of the season, if you factor in playoff game, Xavier Worthy had 50 receptions over his last eight games. So pro-rated over a full season, that's a hundred-catch pace. Like, I don't think that genie is going back in the bottle, man. And maybe Rishi Rice is still like the leading, leads the chiefs and targets and receptions. I could totally understand that happening.

But I don't think Worthy suddenly becomes a 30-catch guy. Like, he is going to be involved in this offense because he is a good player. So I just don't see Rishie Rice getting the same. sort of target load he had in 2023 and early 2024. Is there a chance that both those guys end up being correct answers this year? And like Kelsey takes another step back, but Mahomes kind of, you know, coming off this blowout in the Super Bowl, it almost is like a bit of a revenge tour like, hey, we're still the chiefs.

And those two are just like one A and one B in this offense. Can you see that happening fits? Or do you think it's going to be one or the other? Yeah. And I'm trying to be consistent with that. So I've got like Rice ranked right now as a mid-Roy, range wide receiver two and worthy as a back end wide receiver two de bro what do you think about you know i know you said that they don't really play the same role do you think there's room for both of them to be

really strong fantasy contributors i don't in the roles that they're that i'm forecasting for them to play i think rice goes back into the role that he was playing last year which is the same role he was playing in twenty twenty three i think worthy who was the only worthy didn't break out last year until he started playing the Rishi Rice role. And I think what's kind of get lost in the sauce here is Patrick Baham's been objectively a terrible downfield passer over the last two years. So I think there's a big divide here. I think that their offense, because I think a lot of people look at this to say,

okay, like they're going to go back to chucking it down the field and all that kind of things. Like I'm saying it with my ranks. Like I don't think that that happens because I don't know if Patrick Mahomes still has that in his skill set to be an electric deep ball passer. Like, because he hasn't. he's been horrible over the last two years. Not just bad, but like one of the worst deep ball passers in the entire NFL.

And because of the name Patrick Mahomes, it just kind of gets lost in the conversation. We'll go ahead and wrap things up there. That was a bunch of different risky players to think twice about drafting in 2025, plus a couple that we are interested in drafting for Debrough and Fitz. Thanks everybody for tuning in. I'm Ryan Warmly. We'll see again next time. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football Podcast.

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